


Bury Me In Shadows

by AuroraKant



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Young Justice (Cartoon), Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Buried Alive, Canon-Typical Violence, Dick Grayson-centric, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Remembering your best friend dying and still being sad about it!, The Original Team makes a Cameo, Wally West is Dead and Everyone is Sad, Which are typical Season 3 moods, Whump, YeetDC2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:27:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23859781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuroraKant/pseuds/AuroraKant
Summary: It was supposed to be a standard training exercise at the end of a long week of training exercises, but one wrong comment and Brion lost control.Now it was a question of pure survival for Dick - and for his team. They weren't ready to lose someone else so soon.
Relationships: Artemis Crock & Dick Grayson, Dick Grayson & M'gann M'orzz
Comments: 33
Kudos: 198
Collections: Gotham Square (Batfam Discord Fics)





	Bury Me In Shadows

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elie/gifts).



> Hello! And I am back so soon:  
> The sweet Elie asked for this prompt on the discord so I delivered: the gang is having a training Session ala the one at conner and m'gaans house with the new kids, and dick is sparring with brion whos still in his very angry and stressed about his sister phase and gets so angry he justs.. buries dick underground because he looses control over his powers, and dicks suffocating and getting burnt and the old and new YJ is like trying to save him and dig him out etc. really im just in need for dick whump
> 
> Thanks for the prompt and thanks to Batgirl_K for beta reading!!! <3  
> I love comments, critique, kudos and the knowledge that you all enjoyed this!

It was supposed to be a normal training fight.

They had been doing this for weeks, teaching Brion, Halo,and Forager how to become heroes worthy of the JL or the team, and they had been getting better. They had. Dick knew it. He saw it every day.

And yet…

“Brion, I am standing only a hundred feet away. Why can’t you hit me? This worked perfectly yesterday!”

“I know!”

The young man in front of him was getting red, Dick wasn’t sure if it was due to embarrassment or anger. And normally Dick would be much more lenient, years under the Bat had taught him what a harsh teacher could install when it came to insecurities and issues, but they had been doing this for weeks. This wasn’t even anything complicated. This was basic target practice, something Brion had been able to do yesterday with an ease that told Dick, that the boy understood how he was supposed to do it.

So, why now? Why was Brion utter shit at it only a day later?

“What is going on with you? You know how to do this!”

“I KNOW!”

In the corner of his eye Dick could see the waiting forms of M’gann and Conner, both of them watching from a safe distance, while Artemis taught Forager and Halo evasion tactics on the other side of the house. A farm in the middle of nowhere really had its perks.

Maybe Dick could move to one of those, should he ever have enough of Blüdhaven. Hah. As if he could ever get enough of that dirt hole. He loved it like other people loved bad haircuts. Didn’t mean he was ready for a new hairstyle, though.

“Okay. Again!”

And again, Brion missed the target next to Dick, when he motioned for the earth to move. It was a bit embarrassing for Dick, too, to be honest, since there hadn’t even been a need for him to dodge anything yet.

“Brion… what is the matter? Is something troubling you?”

“No. Nothing. Everything is perfectly fine!”

There was so much anger balled in the hunched shoulders of Brion, so much fury, that Dick took an involuntary step back, before he yelled his next response:

“Is this about your sister? Did something happen?”

That was the wrong thing to say. Dick knew it the moment the words left his mouth, but by then it was already too late.

“Yes! This is about my sister! And the fact that none of you are doing anything!”

Brion’s voice had grown steadily louder, until he was screaming so loud Dick was sure even Halo and Artemis had heard him. M’gann and Conner certainly had, as they were getting up from their seats on the porch to come and investigate the commotion.

But they didn’t move fast enough.

In his anger at Dick, Brion had summoned a giant wave of hot stone and earth. And Dick was too slow to dodge something like this- the moving stone crashed into him, before Dick even had a chance to react. There was nothing he could do, except close his eyes, when darkness overcame him and hope for the best.

He woke up again. That was the first surprise that greeted him. The second was, that he was still able to feel all of his extremities.

The rest of his situation was what he would have expected, if he had had the time to expect anything before the wave hit him: He was somewhere dark, possibly underground, and there was nothing Dick could smell or feel that would indicate that he was anywhere near fresh air. And he hurt.

There was pain lacing up his chest, pain piercing every nerve in his back, but the worst of it was the pain in his arms and legs.

He was upright; at least, it felt as if he was upright, and while the compressed earth around him had allowed for a small bubble of air around his head, his arms and legs were under pressure from all sides. It created a symphony of agony. Since Brion liked his stone hot, the melting Nightwing gear under his clothes got pressed into the soft flesh of Dick’s body. It wasn’t as bad on his upper body, the Kevlar protecting his vitals tested even against the eyes of a Super, but even there he could feel the stifling heat eating Dick’s reserves.

Okay.

So, he was underground, probably concussed – though there was no way to tell – with bad burns all over his body. Oh, and the small fact that he was running out of air.

_Great._

Exactly what he needed.

This was the reason Dick hadn’t wanted another team. This was the reason Dick had wanted to remain solo, okay? When it was just him and Barbara in his ear, the only person to bury him alive would be Clayface and the guy had been silent for ages now.

But, no, Dick had to remain clam. He couldn’t allow himself to become hysteric. Because if he started to breathe faster, he would die faster. And that would suck. It would really, completely, _royally_ suck.

Especially since his entire team was somewhere out there, maybe not even five feet away ready to save him. And they would manage that. Of course, they would. Dick just needed to remain calm and not accidentally suffocate himself ~~,~~ and everything would turn out just fine.

He knew it.

Okay.

Yeah, he believed in that.

They would save him, and he would be okay.

And until then he could ignore the burning sensation overtaking his body, or the tears leaking out of his eyes. It would be okay. Everything would be all right.

‘Dick?’

M’gann! She had her mind link! She could talk to him!

‘M’gann… thank God!’

‘How are you? Are you okay?’

‘Define okay…?’

Dick hadn’t realized it could be this complicated to form clear sentences in his own head, but even trying to focus on sending his thoughts to M’gann hurt. Every word was a spike of throbbing agony through his skull.

‘Cool it, Boy Wonder. Answer Miss M, will you?’

‘Sure, Arty, I am… not doing too good… might be a bit of a brisket right now… can you find me?’

‘We are trying right now, Dick, but… Brion used so much power to… _bury you_ , he passed out. We are searching with Halo and Forager for your exact location and then Conner and I will get you out of there.’

Ah, so the chances were slim. Dick had been in the superhero game for long enough. He knew how you talked to a lost cause, someone you probably weren’t going to be able to save.

Well, this sucked.

‘Don’t get down on me, Dick, if you give up now, M’gann is never going to forgive herself. So, you better fess up and stay on track until we find your sorry ass.’

Artemis sounded angry. Angry and sad. And Dick couldn’t fault her for that. Both of them were the ones who had suffered the most under Wally’s death; it had helped to have another person who understood the pain of losing your tie to humanity. She had been his shoulder to lean on during many sleepless nights and he had done the same for her, when she needed him.

It wouldn’t be fair for him to die when she had just started to heal.

When Dick himself had only just started to heal.

‘Okay’

He would try. He would try to stay alive. He would do his best to stay conscious, to keep the fear out, to stay hopeful. He would try his best not to be crushed under the weight of it all – the earth and the dread lurking at the edges of his mind.

He would stay strong for them, even if he wasn’t sure he could do it for himself.

But he couldn’t do it alone; the silence so deafening that Dick was forced to listen to the screams of his aching muscles, to the burning of his skin.

‘But, um, could you talk to me? Being stuck in a dark hole is a dis-aster, heavy on the _dis_.’

‘Sure, Dick. What do you want to know? Oh! Gar visited last week! It was really nice. He brought flowers and cookies, said they reminded him of me. He is such a sweetheart!’

M’gann sounded happy when she started talking, and Dick tried his best to ignore the quiver in her mental voice. He didn’t have to wait for long, Artemis taking over when M’gann finished:

‘Ah, Gar is growing up, isn’t he? Well, Lian is as well. She learned the word poop yesterday and it has been one never ending poop joke in the Harper-Nguyen household since then’

Their stories went on, and Dick let himself be soothed by the dry voice of Artemis and her oftentimes more adult adventures, and the sweet tenor of M’gann who lovingly talked about each of the kids she taught in school, how she helped them even as Miss Morse, and not just as Miss Martian.

It was nice.

It made the suffocating smell of his own recycled air bearable; it made it possible to ignore the lightheadedness and the numbness creeping up his arms and legs.

It made it easy to start to drift off.

‘Hey, Blunder! Keep your attention on me: Get traught or get dead! Remember?’

‘Hn, yeah… I remember’

‘We found you, okay? Conner is already on his way. We’ll be there, I promise.’

‘Yeah…’

It was hard to keep believing. It was hard to trust his friends like that. He had betrayed them time after time after all. He had been at fault for Wally’s death, and yet… and yet they did everything in their power to save him. They did everything they were capable of doing to free him and save his life.

He hadn’t deserved any of them. He really, truly hadn’t.

‘Ah, knock it off, Dick. We love you even if you are an asshat sometimes. We wouldn’t want it any other way. Honestly.’

Oh, had he thought that out loud? Had the others heard that? Had Artemis heard that? Had she been the one to answer?

‘Yeah, hang in there… please’

Dick wanted to try. He wanted to stay focused and to keep his private thoughts private and his loud thoughts loud, but the distinction got harder and harder, the line something he wasn’t really aware of anymore.

Focusing in total became a sort of struggle. His thoughts wanted to wander, his brain straying from one idea to the other, from one thought to another.

It didn’t take long for him to focus on Wally, on a situation that had ended with Dick burning too. He remembered how scared he had been eight years prior when the world ended, but it had only been in their heads. He remembered looking at Wally and knowing that Wally had figured it out. That Wally knew that Dick had sent both of them to die in the fire.

‘Wait what?’

Oh, Artemis could hear his thoughts. Yeah, Dick knew that. But he had forgotten for a little while. Or a long one.

It was hard to keep track of time when the world was falling apart, and everything was dark and warm and pressing and tearing at him from the inside out. Dying had felt like this too, back then. Dick could still remember the smell of burned flesh reaching his nose moments before he knew no more. Moments before he woke up, disoriented in the HQ.

‘Dick? What do you mean with that? I mean, I know you died… all of us had to die in the simulation, but… Dick!’

He could go and join Wally now. It had been their fate, Dick was pretty sure, to die together, and Dick had disrupted it with his horrible plan. He had killed Wally before his time… maybe he could join him now.

Oh, and his family! He missed them terribly sometimes. Bruce was kinda shitty when it came to good hugs after a nightmare. Bruce… Bruce would be so sad if Dick died.

Why was Dick dying again?

It was… It was really hard to keep a clear head. There was something running down his nose, and there was noise in his head, yelling, but it was so hard to concentrate on it. It was too hard.

‘ _DICK_!’

‘Dick! Stay with us! We have almost reached you!’

‘Dick, **you bastard!** I will kill you if you die ** _! I will end you!’_**

It was so far away. So… _distant_ … it felt as if it was all happening to someone else. Dick just wanted to sleep. To greet the darkness surrounding him with open arms, arms that didn’t hurt. Eyes that didn’t sting. A world that didn’t burn.

He just wanted it to be over.

The world was pain. Everything was pain. Breathing hurt. Existing hurt. Every beat of his heart sent waves of discomfort through his body.

But… there was a body left to feel pain. There was something left of him to wake up, to suffer, to realize that the oppressing darkness had given away to soft light, and the pressure of burning hot stone had been switched with the cold sensation of bandages.

He hurt. He ached. He suffered.

But he was alive.

“Hey, Dickface.”

There was no energy in him to open his eyes, no strength to answer or react, but Artemis didn’t need any of that. She knew him well, and if Dick knew her, then the rest of the gang was here as well.

“If you ever do something like this again… I’m gonna fucking haunt you.”

The sweet relief of painkillers and sleep was tugging on his mind, the darkness of unconsciousness so much more relaxing than the burning sensation of healing, but still Dick forced himself to stay awake a bit longer. To keep his mind for a minute or two.

“I love you, man, but… I don’t want to see you go. And I don’t want to see you go over some misplaced guilt over Wally, you dumbass.”

“Yeah, listen to Artemis, you ass. We love you. Stay alive and try to not let shit like this happen.”

Conner had spoken. Conner was here as well.

“Dick… I… we all look after each other, right? Let us look after you as well in the future. Wally would have wanted it and I want it as well. I want to know you’re okay.”

And M’gann, her tenor as soft and sweet as ever.

“Yeah, you are a bitch, but you are our bitch.”

Arty, again, and then a voice Dick hadn’t heard in a long time:

“We were quite worried about you… this was not the phone call I had been expecting.”

_Kaldur._

No matter how tired he was, or how much he wanted the darkness to claim him again, he couldn’t stop his lips from pulling into a slight smile. Kaldur, Artemis, M’gann, and Conner… all of them sitting around his bed, looking after him, making sure he was okay.

It almost felt like the good old days. It almost felt like the countless times the team had sat vigil on his bedside after a mission. It felt like sleepovers, and cookie parties. It felt like Wally’s bad flirting and Conner’s anger issues. It felt like Artemis’s tough love and M’gann’s freely given. It felt like Kaldur’s cool touch and his own… energy. His own laughter, joy, and mischief.

He had missed this.

He had missed these people.

He had missed his family.

If anyone saw the tears escaping his closed eyes, they didn’t mention them. Dick went back to sleep, four sets of hands resting on his bandaged form. All of them together as close as they could be.

All of them in the same room again, Wally’s ghost watching over them.


End file.
